Inward Reflection
by FE96jAFFAR
Summary: After the Grimm invade Vale, all of the Beacon students return to classes. Yang has some thoughts that she needs to get off of her chest though, and she thinks she knows someone who might be able to help... Oneshot.


Just something short I wrote. I mostly wrote it to show how I think Yang and Ren see things - I don't see Yang the way she sees herself in this story, but I can easily see her feeling this way. Same with Ren. So I figured, why not write a short fic? Inspired by "How the Lotus Found Happiness" by AnarchicStorm. I liked the idea of Yang and Ren relating to each other, but wanted to write something without any romance involved between them in the story.

This is a oneshot - unless I magically get lots of reviews asking for more of something similar (like more friendship scenes, team reactions to Yang and Ren's new friendship, etc), this is it.

Disclaimer: I do not, and would never claim to, own RWBY.

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><p>A loud yawn escaped Yang's mouth as she stretched her arms far above her head.<p>

"Finally! I can't believe class went on so long! I was nearly falling asleep the whole time."

Weiss gave the blonde brawler a short glare. "You know, we're actually supposed to learn things in class, not use it for nap time," the heiress snapped at Yang.

On Weiss's other side, Ruby gave her own small yawn. Once her silver eyes reopened, she piped up in Yang's defense, saying, "We all know that, but I think all of us are still tired from everything that's happened recently." In a more teasing tone of voice, she added, "You just like Professor Port too much to sleep in his class."

Weiss spluttered in response. "I- You- That has nothing to do with!" The white-haired girl exclaimed, arms crossed defensively in front of her. "I just… think that learning about Grimm is too important to sleep through, especially given what we've just been through!"

Her comment immediately put a stop to the joking, and the grins that Yang and Ruby had been sporting (and the small smile that Blake had been wearing from her spot beside and slightly behind Yang) immediately vanished. The group of girls walked in silence for a few moments.

"Way to ruin the mood," Yang grumbled.

Blake cut in to the conversation at that point. "Weiss is right, at least partly. After what just happened, with the Grimm making their way into Vale…

"I don't think any of us can say that we don't need to get better.

"On the other hand," Blake added, "learning about Grimm isn't exactly the answer – we've fought most of those Grimm before, and we know _how_ to fight them. That's not our problem."

With a sly grin, Blake continued. "So in that way, Yang's right too. Maybe Weiss just can't stand to disappoint Professor Port."

Yang and Ruby both burst out into laughter, only laughing harder when they saw Weiss's indignant expression.

"I swear, you three are insufferable! Blake, you've let them corrupt you!" Weiss accused the other girl, dramatically pointing at the cat faunus.

"Probably," Blake agreed with a smile.

"Now come on!" Ruby exclaimed excitedly. "I want to get to the cafeteria and eat, before all the cookies are gone!"

Yang rolled her eyes. "Ruby, relax – no one's going to eat all of your cookies."

As if to prove her wrong, team RWBY immediately heard a voice in the distance shouting.

"REEEEEEN! It's food time, so let's go!" They didn't hear whatever was said in response, but they heard the reaction to it.

"Alright! Off to food!" Looking over in the direction of the loud voice, none of the girls were surprised to see Nora skipping her way towards the cafeteria.

"See? We can't let Nora get to the cookies first!" Ruby took off at a run, following the path of their orange-haired friend.

With a sigh, Weiss began to jog after her, shouting, "Ruby, wait for your team!"

Blake took a few steps to follow, and then realized something was off. Turning around, she saw Yang looking off towards where they'd seen Nora initially.

"…Is something wrong?" The question seemed to bring Yang out of whatever thoughts she'd been caught up in.

The blonde replied, "Nope! Nothing at all. Just… I'll catch up to you guys later, ok?"

Blake narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Yang sounded almost nervous, and the black-haired faunus was tempted to ask what was going on.

In the end, she let it go. Her partner would tell her in her own time, and if she didn't… Then Blake would find out what was wrong, one way or another.

"Ok," she responded. "Don't take too long, though, or else Ruby might come searching for you."

With a nervous laugh, Yang waved it off. "Don't worry, I'll catch up in no time."

Blake turned without another word, calmly walking off to catch up to the rest of their team.

She knew it was ridiculous – she trusted her teammates, especially Blake – but Yang waited until Blake was out of sight before she moved. Walking towards where they'd seen Nora, she made her way through one of the garden-esque areas that Beacon seemed to have scattered around the campus.

Before long, she found what she was searching for – or rather, _who_ she was searching for.

"Hey Ren!" Yang greeted the quiet fighter. From his meditative pose on the ground, Ren opened one eye and smiled as a greeting.

As he returned to meditating, Yang felt a little bad about interrupting his meditation. But…

"…Do you have a minute to talk?" This time, the dark-haired teen opened both eyes and looked at Yang. He was silent, and for a moment Yang thought he was either going to say no or just go back to meditating.

Before she decided to just leave it be, however, he answered, "Sure. Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?"

Yang reached a hand up to the back of her head, fidgeting with her hair as she tried to phrase what she wanted to say. "Well, uh.." She stopped, gathered her thoughts.

"…Do you mind if I sort of explain what led to it first?" It wasn't really necessary for the question she was going to ask, but she felt better doing so. Hopefully, he'd understand better this way.

He looked at her for another long moment, and then said, "Sure."

Yang let herself fall onto the grass next to Ren, laid back with her arms propping her up.

"Well, it really has to do with me… and my team." She immediately realized how that sounded, and rushed to clear up any possible misunderstandings. "Not that there's anything wrong with my team! Between my sis, Blake, and even Weiss, I think I got pretty lucky."

A smile had made its way onto her face, but just as quickly slid off as she got back to her point. "But… The thing is, all of them have some amazing thing about them, whether it's something they've done, or just the way they are.

"Ruby is my little sis. I love her from here to Atlas, and that's never going to change. But sometimes it's a little hard having a little sister who's so amazing, you know? She went from being my little sister who was sort of following in my footsteps, to being my little sister who's leading my team and kicking all sorts of ass. It's awesome and all, and I'm proud of her, but…" She struggled for the right words for a moment. She didn't look over at Ren to see what expression was on his face, but he didn't interrupt the silence.

"It's weird to have a little sister who I've had to take care of so long, and now she's taking charge. She doesn't need my help – heck, there are times where she's the talk of the school. Huntress extraordinaire, the girl who skipped two years to join Beacon early."

She fell silent. Unconsciously, she had curled up her legs and wrapped her arms around them. She forced herself to let go, to fall back into a more relaxed sprawl on the grass.

"And then there's Weiss. Heiress to the Schnee Dust Corporation, smart and studious at school work, and she can do lots of different things with her Semblance and Dust. I mean, she's one of the more popular girls in our grade… And I'm not mentioning that because I'm jealous of the attention," she joked lightly. Looking over, Yang saw that she'd managed to get at least a small smile from Ren.

"She's an amazing fighter, and she and Ruby have really hit it off now that they've gotten over that initial rough patch. On our last mission, she held her own against a skilled White Fang member – and based on what we've seen, that's not anything to sneeze at!

"Blake…" Yang smiled almost wistfully as she brought up her partner. "She's strong. As a fighter, yeah, but more as a person. She's had to put up with a lot because of being a faunus, including having to distrust us, her team. But even through all that, she's still fighting, trying to make the world a better place. She found her path, and she's sticking to it despite anything they throw in her way.

"Heck," Yang added, "she was even the one to make sure Torchwick was around to bring into custody – she was the one who took him out on the train!"

She paused for a moment, and then took the plunge.

"I guess what I'm getting at is… All of my teammates have something unique about them, some drive or skill that makes them really stand out. Me? I'm known as 'that girl with a temper' or 'the girl with the lame jokes'. I mean, I don't want people to bow down and praise my skills, but… sometimes it's hard to be looked over for my teammates all the time.

"I haven't really seen any of my old friends in a long while, you know?" She changed topics slightly. "Between school and all of the exciting but crazy stuff that's been going on all year, I haven't had much of a chance to go and hang out with them. And even if I did, they're all busy with their teams. It's weird… I'm the one who started out with lots of other friends when the rest of my team didn't know a lot of people, and now I'm the one who has the least. We're all friends with you guys, of course," she hurried to say, "but Ruby has Penny, Weiss has Neptune, Blake has Sun… I feel like I'm the only one without someone they spend time with outside of our teams."

Yang fell silent again, letting the silence hang in the air.

Surprisingly, Ren broke the silence – the first thing he'd said since she'd started.

"So what was the question you wanted to ask me?" Yang started – she'd almost completely forgot about the whole point of coming over here.

"Well, I don't mean to sound rude, but…. How do you deal with… uh…"

"Being the least noticed member of my team?" Ren finished for her. She flushed at how bluntly he put it.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I don't mean that as a bad thing, but-" He interrupted her again.

"No, it's fine. You're right – with my teammates, a lot of the people who notice our team don't really notice or pay much attention to me."

This time he took a moment to gather his thoughts. With a sigh, Ren started talking more than he felt he had in a while.

"I guess I would say… I deal with it by accepting the reasons behind it." As Yang turned to give him a somewhat startled look, he smiled lightly. "I know that my teammates are very attention-grabbing, and that I'm not. In the few situations where people have seen me fight, I haven't really shown off impressive skills.

"Jaune, as our leader, is the first person people see when they look at team JNPR. At first he got a lot of attention because he was… well, not the best fighter. But now he gets attention because people know about him taking on the big Ursa earlier this year, and he's been improving in class, both in fights and in his schoolwork." Another pause.

"Pyrrha… is probably the most skilled member of our team. She fights extremely well, and is very smart as well. Between her grades and being able to do things like take on all of team CRDL, a lot of people notice her, and think of her as some sort of super-soldier."

He paused, and when he spoke again, he did so with a smile. "Lastly is Nora. And… well, I don't think I really need to say much about Nora. She'd get attention even if she was stranded in the middle of the ocean, because she would demand that the fish and other sea creatures follow her orders. And probably get them to do it, too.

"And then…" Now, he turned to look straight at Yang, rather than just tilting his head towards her as he'd been doing so far. "There's me. I haven't made any huge jump in skill, my grades and fighting skills are good but not amazing, and I'm quiet, so few people pay attention to me.

"But I actually almost prefer it that way." Yang, having forced herself to let him talk up until now, couldn't restrain herself anymore.

"Wait, what? You prefer not being noticed?" He nodded, still smiling.

"Yes. It makes it easier to do what I want, or what I need to do. While Jaune leads our team and brings his skills up to an appropriate level, I can train without being disturbed. While Pyrrha continues to make a name for herself, I can study and do my work in peace."

"And when Nora is her normal self?" Yang asked, not noticing that she'd taken on an almost teasing tone to her voice.

"Then," he responded with a smirk, "I get to clean up after her without being interrupted."

Yang shook her head with a small laugh. "You really care for her, don't you?"

Ren responded immediately. "Yes. She and I have been friends… no, partners, since before we came to Beacon. A lot of people, both those who know us and those who don't, assume there is something romantic between us, but…"

"You guys are partners, but you could never see each other that way." Yang finished for him.

He smiled at her, this time a full, honest-to-god grin that she'd never seen on his face before. "Exactly."

Yang let herself fall back on the grass, closed her eyes. She let the wind blow past her face some.

"Focus on what I'm doing, not how I'm seen... Huh..." she murmured quietly.

Then she smoothly flipped herself onto her feet and stood. Extending a hand down to Ren, she said, "Thanks. I think I definitely needed that conversation. But now, I think we should be getting to lunch – Ruby's probably starting to worry about me, and I'd bet Nora's waiting for you."

A smile still on his face, Ren took her hand and got up to his feet. "Let's not keep them waiting then."


End file.
